(Please excuse the title 1915 on your email notice. I published before I realized I hadn’t titled the post!)
In another life, many years ago, I spent more than a few nights running the woods, chasing after baying hounds and stumbling over deadfalls, crashing through underbrush, lunging over creek banks, and floundering through water that was deeper than it appeared in a flashlight beam. Long nights of getting wet, cut, descended upon by Game Wardens, bruised, lost, scraped, running until breathless, and laughing at each other in the calamity. ‘Coon hunting.
I had a dog that was marginal. Traded a crippled horse plus $50 cash for that dog and a box for the bed of my pickup truck. I was just a dumb kid, and would have been money ahead to keep the horse. But ‘coons were bringing good money in those days ($40 apiece in the late ‘70’s) and my buddies and I had nothing better to do after dark, so we needed a dog, but had very little money to spend on one. Oh, Ole Sally had been quite a dog in her day, and garnished a reputation of being “true blue” (although she was a Black and Tan). That was before they took her to the swamps in Louisiana and something happened that soured her, unbeknown to me at the time. (Hmm, maybe a gator. Who knows what distractions and scurrilous psychological maladies be found in a swamp at night? Probably hit the trail of a slimy US Senator who shape-shifted into a TV “journalist” who stuck a video camera in her face and called her a xenophobic Procyon Lotor terrorista…or something.)
I traded for Ole Sal and we commenced to hunt. More often than not, she’d trail junk (unwanted game such as deer, coyote or worse, a possum). The problem with a possum is they’ll climb a tree and when the dog hits “tree” it looks like a real “tree”, until you shine up that ole grinnin’ possum. Occasionally, we’d actually get a ‘coon.
Many times she’d “slick tree”. That is, she would bay “trail”, and tree on a clean tree (no game in it). In other words, her experience with the shape shifter in the swamp affected her mind, and she would put on a show, get the hunters all excited, lead us on a fast paced, helter-skelter run, and when finally she showed “tree”, there was nothing there.
The last few months in Washington DC have looked an awful lot like one of my ‘coon hunts. Lots of excitement and anticipation, imaginations and speculations. Lots of commentary and expectation while running the trail, only to find a “slick tree”, or worse yet, that ole grinning possum peering back at them. (For some reason, I want to name him “Harry”.)
But, at least they’re on the hunt. Rumors of “Russian Collusion” finally were trailed down to “Russian Interference” in the election process, and everyone should be concerned about that ole grinning Possum. Yep, he tried to get into both parties hen houses, but little Johnny was snookered into opening the coop door, and the old grinning egg sucker carted off a whole treasure trove of emails, some of which implicated Johnny’s candidate, who had tried to set up her own henhouse in a closet ignoring the warnings about those ole snooping possums, and the rules for government communicae.
Accusations of the new President colluding with the old Possum to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign have dissipated into a “slick tree”. In fact, the old soured Hound himself has repeatedly said so.
Leaving the hunting analogy for just a bit here, let’s take a different view of this whole debacle.
For the months since the election, November of 2016, we have been constantly bombarded with “Trump colluded with the Russians to sabotage Hillary’s campaign”.
First of all, why would the Russians prefer an unknown, a loose cannon, someone who is unpredictable, but has made campaign promises to increase spending on US Military interests and expand our military capabilities, presumably to at least GW Bush’s level, and possibly to Reagan’s era? It doesn’t make sense. With Hillary Clinton in the White House, any observer, especially the old Russian possum, would safely assume a continuation of Obama’s foreign policy, worthless red lines and abdication of the Middle East and the Caucuses area to Russia, US Military cuts, a do nothing attitude concerning Russian expansionism into Crimea and Ukraine, not to mention Russia’s military build-up over the last 20 years. Why would Russia want to risk a free rein and oppose Hillary? After all, she brought that big red button to Geneva to share with them!
Secondly, and more importantly, who was guarding the henhouse? Whose administration was on duty? Whose responsibility was it to make sure that old Possum didn’t get into the henhouse?
That old sour Hound has been leading a pack of yokels down a bad trail and stuck ‘em on a slick tree! The media and the Congress has been had, and so have the American People!
The real culprit here is not Donald Trump, or his campaign. Trump had no power or responsibility to keep the Russians out, (assuming that’s truly what happened, a “Russian hack”). That’s a national security issue.
That is the responsibility of the President of the United States and the US Government; to secure and defend the interests of the United States and her citizens. The real culprit here is the Obama Administration, yet no hounds are on the trail! It was the Obama Administration; James Comey, FBI, Susan Rice, NSA, John Brennen, CIA (who incidentally is known to have supported a Communist Party USA Presidential candidate), Ashton Carter, DOD, Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security, John Kerry, Secretary of State, Director of Intelligence James Clapper, and finally Loretta Lynch, US Dept of Justice Attorney General.
It was this bunch who were supposed to be “watching the henhouse”, and keeping the Russians under watchful eye, denying them entry at every turn. What were they doing? Well, we have been given enough evidence to suggest and confirm that the FBI was monitoring telephone conversations involving Trump campaign members months before the election, as revealed in the NY Times when the felonious “unmasking” report was published. Why weren’t the FBI blocking the efforts of the Russians, or at least notifying the respective campaigns that Russian probes were being made so take the necessary precautions? Perhaps there was a little “fishing” going on; let’s let them in and see if we can tie the Trump people up in a collusion scandal. Hmm? Well, it’s about as valid speculation as some of the other stupidity I’ve heard. But of course, then President Obama got really tough with Putin and told him to “cut it out”. That should have taken care of the old Possum.
So when is Congress going to subpoena Loretta Lynch and grill her about her request to Jim Comey (which he said made him very uncomfortable) to use the language being used by the Hillary campaign and refer to his probe on her as a “matter” and not as an “investigation”? How about questioning AG Lynch about her meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac, during that investigation, just a few days prior to James Comey’s now infamous and unprecedented unilateral press conference where he listed Hillary’s misconduct of handling classified emails, then recommended no indictments to DOJ.
Where were all the shape shifters back then? Where were all the tough journalists looking to hold government accountable? Where?!
About a week ago I was called by the BBC. Yes, that international media monster, that reports with the oh, so cool accent. This was a follow up of a 3 hour on site interview I gave them back in March about why I voted for Donald Trump. I explained to them that we were tired of the sour hounds baying at every dim trail and junk game. Well, I didn’t use the ‘coon hunting metaphor, but in my best English and manners, I told them Trump was a result of years of propagandist party loyal media.
This time the British gentleman requested a live radio interview about Mr. Trump pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. The time he gave didn’t work for me for the live phone conversation, but I agreed to do a recorded response earlier in the day. That interview did not air, and I’ve not had any luck getting a link to it. I’ll give an account of that conversation in a future post, but I should have gone live.
I was called again Thursday morning by a British lady who asked me if she could call me after the Comey testimony and get my reaction. “Well”, I said, “I won’t be watching.”
“Oh, you have no interest?”, she queried in a lovely accent. I responded, “Not that I don’t have the interest, Ma’am, but I’ve got to make a living. I’ve work to do.”
Well, I think she was aghast that I wasn’t going to wreck my work day to watch James Comey torpedo the Trump Administration. I didn’t tell her I was weary of being slick treed.
I wound up giving that dog back to her original owner.
Man, it’s getting’ boggy down in here…
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